Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN!
Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2018.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):1) Go to the www.ImageChef.com website and explore their FREE offerings. Click on the "Create" button, or choose to make a slideshow or posters from their main page (there are more than one screen of poster backgrounds).

2) Make one or more posters, piece of jewelry, tattoo or other creation - perhaps they relate to genealogy or your own family history. Be sure to check the Photo Frames and Fun template collections. Save them to your computer (right click, Save as Picture for Windows users).

3) Show your creations to us... in your own blog post, on a Facebook post, or on Google Plus etc. If you make a really neat one and want to show it to the world but don't have a way to do it, send it to me (rjseaver@cox.net) and I'll show it off for you in a blog post.Here are some of mine:a) A piece of jewelry for my wife for Christmas (heh! heh!):

Friday, September 7, 2012

In Problems in RM5, LFT7.5, FTM2012 and Ancestry Member Trees (3 September 2012), I noted two problems when I went from my RootsMagic 5 file to a GEDCOM file to a Legacy Family Tree 7.5 file to a second GEDCOM file to a Family Tree Maker 2012 file to as new Ancestry Member Tree. The two problems with the resulting tree were that:* Some of the "double dates" were wrong (one said "0001-20 March 1630" when it should have said "20 March 1630/1")* Some long Source Citation details (more than 255 characters) were truncated.I showed in the referenced post that the GEDCOM created by RootsMagic 5 had correct double dates for Sarah Pray and a complete source citation detail for the 1920 U.S. census for Frank Walton Seaver. In the referenced post, I set out three tasks to investigate where these problems occurred. The first task was to create a GEDCOM file from my RootsMagic 5 database and upload it to a new Ancestry Member Tree, which I did in Task 1 - Upload RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM file to Ancestry Member Tree.The second task was to upload the same GEDCOM file to Family Tree Maker 2012, review the issues, and then upload the FTM2012 tree to a new Ancestry Member Tree using the TreeSync feature. I split this effort into two posts - first Task 2a - Upload GEDCOM File to Family Tree Maker 2012 and Task 2B - The third task was to upload the GEDCOM file (created in RootsMagic 5) to a new Legacy Family Tree 7.5 database, and evaluate the problems found in the first referenced post. The two problems seen were:1) Some of the "Double Date" entries were scrambled, in the form of "0001-20 March 1630" when it should have been "20 March 1630/31." Before I imported the GEDCOM file, I made sure that the box for using Double Dates in Legacy Family Tree was checked (Options menu > Customize > Dates tab, check "Use double dating" in "Double Date Cutoff section).After the GEDCOM import, I navigated to Sarah Pray (1631-1677) and clicked on her to get the "Individual's Information" and saw:

On the screen above, the Birth Date Fact says "Before 0001-20 March 1630," and the Christening Date Fact says "0001-20 March 1630," when the dates should be 20 March 1630/31.

I edited the two Dates by typing "20 Mar 1631" and the dates changed to "20 March 1630/31." Here is the screen before I clicked on "Save:"

After clicking "Save," the Family view screen for Sarah Pray looks like this:

I've looked through the Index for about 5% of my 41,000 persons in this database, and saw only four instances where something like this happened. Three of them were in one Pray family, the one that included Sarah. The vast majority of the Double Dates I saw in the Index were correct.As far as I can tell, the Double Date feature works well in Legacy Family Tree 7.5, except for these isolated instances. I've tested adding a date that should be a Double Date (e.g., 20 March 1631), and Legacy Family Tree translates that to 20 March 1630/1. It always adds the earlier year to create the Double Date. I have no idea how this happened... as I showed in my first post in the series, the GEDCOM lines for these dates look good to me. 2) The Truncated Source Citation Detail: Using the same example as in previous posts, I looked at the 1920 United States Census for Frank Walton Seaver. Here is Frank's "Individual's Information" screen:

The "Census" Fact for the 1920 Census shows the location, but indicates that there is no Source attached to that Fact. This is the case for some of the "Census" Facts (1880, 1900, 1910, 1920) for this one person with those Facts (but they are attached for the 1860 and 1870 Census Facts). Other persons have Census Facts with Sources indicated. In the GEDCOM file, there were Sources for the "Census" Facts.

I have no idea why they do not display for the Census Facts for this person in Legacy Family Tree 7.5. His wife has Sources attached to the Census Fact, as do his son and his parents. Strange!

The "Occupation" Fact for the 1920 Census does have a Source Citation indicated, so I clicked on the "Sources" icon (the three books to the right of the surname) to see the Sources for Frank Walton Seaver, and clicked on the Occupation Fact for the 1920 Census:

In the screen above, you can see that there is no Source for the 1880, 1900, 1910 and 1920 Census Facts. The Source Citation for the Occupation Fact (highlighted on the screen above) that the Footnote/Endnote Citation is:1920 United States Federal Census, Population Schedule, Worcester County, Massachusetts, Leominster; Supervisor District 3, Enumeration District 102, Sheet 5B, dwelling #68, family #132, lines 7-10, Frank W. Seaver household; online database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com); citing National Archives Mi. As you can see, the Citation Detail (after "Population Schedule") has been truncated after 255 characters. The "Subsequent Citation" is also truncated. As I showed in the first post in this series, the GEDCOM file includes the complete Citation Detail (in the PAGE tag). So what I learned in this experiment was that exporting a GEDCOM file (created by RootsMagic 5) to a Legacy Family Tree 7.5 database resulted in:* The GEDCOM file upload for my 41,261 person tree with 30,000 source citations took about 5 minutes to upload to Legacy Family Tree 7.5.* Of the 515 Media links (to images in my computer files) that I had attached to my RootsMagic 5 tree, and which had links to the images in the GEDCOM file, I can't find a way to count them in Legacy Family Tree 7.5. I do see a lot of them!* Legacy Family Tree 7.5 uploaded most of the "Double Dates" correctly (perhaps more than 95% of them), and displayed most of them correctly in the "Individual's Information" screen. However, some were not displayed correctly, but could be edited to be correct.* Legacy Family Tree 7.5 did not find "Census" Fact information, or Source Citation information for some Census Facts, for at least one person for some unknown reason.* Legacy Family Tree 7.5 truncated long Source Citation Detail text to 255 characters in all instances.I hope that the Legacy Family Tree developers will see this post and investigate the problems noted above. I will be happy to provide a small GEDCOM file for the problems noted above.The URL for this post is:Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Are you keeping up with all of the Webinars being offered by Legacy Family Tree (http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/Webinars.asp)? There are two relatively new webinars available to watch for Free until a specific date:1) Building a Family from Circumstantial Evidence,by Judy G. Russell, CG. Broadcast on 29 August 2012, FREE to watch until 10 September 2012.Most genealogists learn very quickly that it's a rare family where direct evidence supplies all the proof needed to connect one generation to another and tie brothers and sisters to each other. In most cases, it's necessary to build the case for family relationships from bits and pieces and hints and clues gathered from a wide variety of sources. Find out more about how to build a family from circumstantial evidence. 2) Beyond the Arrival Date: Extracting More from Passenger Lists, by Lisa Alzo. Broadcast on 5 September 2012, FREE to watch until 17 September 2012.Passenger lists provide key information about an ancestor’s arrival in the New World. But there are additional hidden clues you on them you might be missing. Learn how to really examine these lists to get more of the story!The next Legacy Family Tree Webinar is:Wednesday, 12 September 2012, 2 p.m. EDT:What is a 'Reasonably Exhaustive Search'? by Michael Hait, CG.The first step of the Genealogical Proof Standard is to "complete a reasonably exhaustive search for all relevant records" related to your research objective. This presentation discusses what a "reasonably exhaustive search" constitutes, why this is necessary, and how to conduct a search. A case study explores how failing to identify all relevant records can lead to missing information and forming inaccurate conclusions about your ancestors' lives.You can register for all upcoming webinars on Legacy Family Tree at http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/Webinars.asp.Previous Legacy Family Tree webinars are available on CDROM in the Legacy Family Tree Store (see http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=4).Webinars are one way to obtain quality genealogical education from expert instructors on genealogical topics, social networking and genealogy software.The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/follow-friday-legacy-family-tree.htmlCopyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Thursday, September 6, 2012

In Problems in RM5, LFT7.5, FTM2012 and Ancestry Member Trees (3 September 2012), I noted two problems when I went from my RootsMagic 5 file to a GEDCOM file to a Legacy Family Tree 7.5 file to a second GEDCOM file to a Family Tree Maker 2012 file to as new Ancestry Member Tree. The two problems with the resulting tree were that:* Some of the "double dates" were wrong (one said "0001-20 March 1630" when it should have said "20 March 1630/1")* Some long Source Citation details (more than 255 characters) were truncated.I showed in the previous post that the GEDCOM created by RootsMagic 5 had correct double dates for Sarah Pray and a complete source citation detail for the 1920 U.S. census for Frank Walton Seaver. In the previous post, I set out three tasks to investigate where these problems occurred. The first task was to create a GEDCOM file from my RootsMagic 5 database and upload it to a new Ancestry Member Tree, which I did in Task 1 - Upload RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM file to Ancestry Member Tree.The second task is to upload the same GEDCOM file to Family Tree Maker 2012, review the issues, and then upload the FTM2012 tree to a new Ancestry Member Tree using the TreeSync feature. I'm going to split this effort into two posts - first the upload to FTM 2012, then the TreeSync to a new Ancestry Member Tree. I discussed the first half in Task 2a - Upload GEDCOM File to Family Tree Maker 2012.Part 2 of this second task is to upload the Family Tree Maker 2012 file created from the GEDCOM file (created by RootsMagic 5) into a new Ancestry Member Tree using the TreeSync feature.I took screen captures throughout this process in order to identify the elapsed time. Here are the times noted:* 31 August, 9:15 PM - TreeSync started * 31 August, 10:23 PM - TreeSync of the data file complete (Media in the process of being uploaded).* 1 September, 2:15 PM - The Media upload is still progressing. I cancelled it finally.I took this screen shot today, showing the statistics for the FTM 2012 file:

There are only 509 Media items listed, and I had 515 Media item links in the GEDCOM file. Does anything in the Media Workspace help me here? There is a "Find Missing Media" link in the "Media" menu in the "Media" Workspace. I clicked on that and saw:

There are five Media items listed with the Media caption, Path, Status and Attach columns. The Path column said "Unknown (click to search manually)." I checked the caption, clicked on the "Unknown..." link for each item, found the Media item in my computer files, and added it to the list. After all five of the Missing Media, I saw:

Now I don't know exactly how to proceed here - do I click on the "Copy" button in the "Attach" column? I didn't do that, and still have 509 Media items. I don't see any Missing Media items when I scroll through the thumbnail images, however.I know I got off track with the above, but it's a potential issue for people using TreeSync and who end up with Missing Media. After the TreeSync was successfully completed, I checked the "Tree Overview" of the Ancestry Member Tree created:

All of the Persons were uploaded and synced, but only 504 Media items were synced. My guess is that the 5 found in "Missing Media" were not uploaded. However, my FTM 2012 Plan Workspace says it is In Sync. To the problems noted in the first post:1) The Double Date" issue: The Person Page "Overview" for Sarah Pray is:

The Double Date information is not reflected on that page. However, the "Facts and Sources" tab looks like:

On this "Facts and Sources" tab, the Double Dates are accurately and completely reflected.2) The Source Citation Truncation issue: Here is the list of source Citations and Details for Frank Walton Seaver:

As you can see, the Detail is truncated when it is longer than 255 characters.3) The Notes issue: The Notes window for Frank Walton Seaver looksl ike this:

As you can see, there are extra blank characters in the text. However, they are not in the Source or Source Citation Details fields. All of this is consistent with what was in the FTM 2012 file before the TreeSync.So what I learned in this experiment was that starting with a Family Tree Maker 2012 file (created by importing a GEDCOM file created by RootsMagic 5) to an Ancestry Member Tree using the TreeSync feature resulted in:* The GEDCOM file upload for my 41,261 person tree with 30,000 source citations took only 68 minutes to upload to an Ancestry Member Tree. However, the Media upload too much longer.* 504 Media items of the 515 links to Media items in my computer files (that I had attached to my RootsMagic 5 tree, and which had links to the images in the GEDCOM file to FTM 2012), uploaded to the Ancestry Member Tree. * The Ancestry Member Tree uploaded the "Double Dates" correctly, but did not display them correctly in the "Overview" page of the "Timeline" field on the Person Page. However, they did display correctly on the "Facts and sources" page of the "Timeline" field. * The Ancestry Member Tree truncates long Source Citation Detail text to 255 characters. * The Ancestry Member Tree reads and displays the Person Notes data as shown in FTM 2012 (however, since FTM 2012 added extra blank characters after the GEDCOM upload, the AMT does also). Note that only the tree Owner and persons designated as Editors can see these Notes.The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/task-2b-sync-family-tree-maker-2012.htmlCopyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

I consider the 1870 U.S. Census records to be an "Original Source" (because this "family snapshot" in July 1870 is in its first written form), although the image in the National Archives is likely a record copy (since the enumerator made two copies of the original, and the Archives has the third copy); mostly as "Secondary Information" (since we don't know who provided the information - although it was probably Julia Richmond), and as "Indirect Evidence" for most of the information (the exception being the birthplaces, and Thomas's occupation which were certainly known by the informant).

I see one obvious errors in this census record (based on what I know about these persons from other records, including birth and marriage records):

* Thomas Richmond's age is listed as 23, but he was born 16 June 1848, so he was age 21 on 1 June 1870 (the official census date), and 22 when the enumerator made this record.

Thomas and Julia Richmond had a son, Frederic J. Richmond, sometime in 1870. He is not listed in this census, and so his birth date is likely after 1 June 1870.

I noticed that Thomas Richmond is listed as a U.S. citizen over age 21, although he was an immigrant from England in 1856. I doubt that he applied and was granted naturalization since he's only age 22 in 1870. My educated guess is that he became a citizen of the United States when he married Julia (White) Richmond in 1868.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

In Problems in RM5, LFT7.5, FTM2012 and Ancestry Member Trees (3 September 2012), I noted two problems when I went from my RootsMagic 5 file to a GEDCOM file to a Legacy Family Tree 7.5 file to a second GEDCOM file to a Family Tree Maker 2012 file to as new Ancestry Member Tree. The two problems with the resulting tree were that:* Some of the "double dates" were wrong (one said "0001-20 March 1630" when it should have said "20 March 1630/1")* Some long Source Citation details (more than 255 characters) were truncated.I showed in the previous post that the GEDCOM created by RootsMagic 5 had correct double dates for Sarah Pray and a complete source citation detail for the 1920 U.S. census for Frank Walton Seaver. In the previous post, I set out three tasks to investigate where these problems occurred. The first task was to create a GEDCOM file from my RootsMagic 5 database and upload it to a new Ancestry Member Tree, which I did in Task 1 - Upload RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM file to Ancestry Member Tree.The second task is to upload the same GEDCOM file to Family Tree Maker 2012, review the issues, and then upload the FTM2012 tree to a new Ancestry Member Tree using the TreeSync feature. I'm going to split this effort into two posts - first the upload to FTM 2012, then the TreeSync to a new Ancestry Member Tree.

Part 1 of this second task is to upload the GEDCOM file created by RootsMagic 5 to a new Family Tree Maker 2012 file. I performed this several days ago. Here is the "Plan" View for the FTM 2012 file after the Upload:

I note that there are 41,261 persons in this file, with 509 Media items.

I am most interested in the "Double Date" import here. Here is the Person page for Sarah Pray (used in the previous post):

I noted that the correct "Double Date" entries from the GEDCOM file are present for the Birth and Christening (the latter says 20 March 1630/1). After checking other double date instances, I concluded that Family Tree Maker 2012 reads and displays the dates correctly.

What about a GEDCOM file created by FTM 2012? Here are the lines in the GEDCOM file for Sarah Pray:

The entries for the DATE tags correctly reflect the "Double Dates."

Next I want to look at the Source Citation Detail for the 1920 U.S. Census for Frank Walton Seaver (similar to the previous post). Here is the screen for this citation:

The Source, Citation Detail and Citation Text fields have the complete information transmitted via the GEDCOM file. However, there are extra blank characters in the text fields. I've noticed this, and blogged about it, previously, so this is not a new problem. It seems to be limited to Family Tree Maker 2012 imports of a RootsMagic GEDCOM export file, however.

The lines in the GEDCOM file, created by Family Tree Maker 2012, for this source looks like this:

As you can see, the 1920 U.S. Census Source Citation Detail (the PAGE tag) and the Source Citation Text (the DATA tag) are complete, although with the extra blank characters in the text.

Lastly, I want to show the Person Notes page for Frank Walton Seaver:

As you can see, in the bottom panel, the Person Notes also have the extra blank characters in the text. Again, this is a known problem of Family Tree Maker reading a GEDCOM file created by RootsMagic.

So what I learned in this experiment was that exporting a GEDCOM file (created by RootsMagic 5) to a Family Tree Maker 2012 resulted in:* The GEDCOM file upload for my 41,261 person tree with 30,000 source citations took about 20 minutes to upload to Family Tree Maker 2012.* Of the 515 Media links (to images in my computer files) that I had attached to my RootsMagic 5 tree, and which had links to the images in the GEDCOM file, 509 of them loaded into Family Tree Maker 2012. * Family Tree Maker 2012 uploaded the "Double Dates" correctly, and displayed them correctly in the "Individual and Shared Facts" field on the Person Tab, and created a GEDCOM file with them correctly..* Family Tree Maker 2012 did not truncate long Source Citation Detail text to 255 characters, and created a GEDCOM file with them correctly, although blank characters are added to the Source field text.* Family Tree Maker 2012 reads and displays the Person Notes data correctly, although extra blank characters are in the Notes text.Note: The extra blank characters issue seems to be limited to Family Tree Maker 2012 imports of a RootsMagic GEDCOM export file.The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/task-2a-upload-gedcom-file-to-family.htmlCopyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

I am posting photographs from my family collections for (Not So) Wordless Wednesday (you know me, I can't go wordless!).Here is a photograph from the Geraldine (Seaver) Remley family collection handed down from my Aunt Gerry in 2007 after her passing.

I know who three of these four people are, from left to right: William B. "Bud" Richmond (1909-2003), Marcia R. Chamberlain, an unknown lady, Geraldine Seaver (1917-2007). I don't know when or where these pictures were taken, but my guess is that it was in July 1942 in San Diego, California, at the time of my parents wedding. I believe that the trip for the wedding was the only time Geraldine came to California until the late 1960s.Bud and Gerry are first cousins, and Marcia is their first cousin once removed. Bud is the son of Charles Percival Richmond (1880-1910) and Jessie Brown (1882-1947), and resided in Santa Barbara. Marcia is the granddaughter of George Taylor (1865-1945) and Emily White Richmond (1879-1966), and resided in San Diego. Geraldine is the daughter of Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942) and Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962), and resided in Leominster, Massachusetts.Who is the unknown lady? I don't know - it may be Bud's mother, but she looks pretty young for age 60. It may be a girlfriend of Bud's - he married Jane McPherson (1915-1999) in 1947. It may be one of Marcia's friends.The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/not-so-wordless-wednesday-post-221.htmlCopyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

In Problems in RM5, LFT7.5, FTM2012 and Ancestry Member Trees (3 September 2012), I noted two problems when I went from my RootsMagic 5 file to a GEDCOM file to a Legacy Family Tree 7.5 file to a second GEDCOM file to a Family Tree Maker 2012 file to as new Ancestry Member Tree. The two problems with the resulting tree were that:* Some of the "double dates" were wrong (one said "0001-20 March 1630" when it should have said "20 March 1630/1")* Some long Source Citation details (more than 255 characters) were truncated.I showed in the previous post that the GEDCOM created by RootsMagic 5 had correct double dates for Sarah Pray and a complete source citation detail for the 1920 U.S. census for Frank Walton Seaver. In the previous post, I set out three tasks to investigate where these problems occurred. The first task is to create a GEDCOM file from my RootsMagic 5 database and upload it to a new Ancestry Member Tree. I did the first part of this task in RootsMagic 5 (File > Export) by including everybody and choosing only to export Notes, Sources and Multimedia Links:

The second part of this task is to upload the file into a new Ancestry Member Tree (On Ancestry.com, choose Family Tree tab, then Upload a GEDCOM, and fill in the blanks, then click on "Upload."

The upload of my 41,261 person tree took about three minutes. It took another fifteen minutes for the tree to show up in my Family Trees list. Here is a screenshot of the Tree Overview page:

As you can see, the 41,261 persons loaded, but no Media uploaded (as I expected). After some time, a number of Hints were offered by Ancestry for some of my tree persons.

The Person page for Sarah Pray looks like this:

As you can see, the two Facts for Birth (it says "Mar" rather than "Bef 20 Mar 1630/1") and Christening (it says "Mar" rather than "20 Mar 1630/1") don't show completely in the Timeline field. The Birth Fact is shown correctly just below the person's name. My conclusion here, after checking more instances of this, is that Ancestry reads the "Double Dates" correctly, but does not display them correctly in the Timeline field. I have noted this previously while perusing many Ancestry Member Trees.

The "Source Citations" tab for Frank Walton Seaver looks like this (scrolled down the page a bit):

The Source and Citation Detail are listed for each Fact. Some of the Details are complete (e.g., the 1900 U.S. Census Fact Detail) and some are truncated (e.g. the 1920 U.S. Census Fact Detail). The truncated ones are more than 255 characters. My conclusion here is that the Source Citation Detail field in an Ancestry Member Tree is 255 characters.

Lastly, I want to show the Notes screen for Frank Walton Seaver:

The Notes listed above look fine to me - they have line breaks, no extra blank characters, etc. So what I learned in this experiment was that exporting a GEDCOM file (created by RootsMagic 5) to an Ancestry Member Tree resulted in:* The GEDCOM file upload for my 41,261 person tree with 30,000 source citations took only 3 minutes to upload to an Ancestry Member Tree.* The Media (515 links to images in my computer files) that I had attached to my RootsMagic 5 tree, and which had links to the images in the GEDCOM file, did not upload to the Ancestry Member Tree.* The Ancestry Member Tree uploaded the "Double Dates" correctly, but did not display them correctly in the "Timeline" field on the Person Page.* The Ancestry Member Tree truncates long Source Citation Detail text to 255 characters. * The Ancestry Member Tree reads and displays the Person Notes data correctly. Note that only the tree Owner and persons designated as Editors can see these Notes.The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/task-1-upload-rootsmagic-5-gedcom-file.htmlCopyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

The collections above with a number of records available means that the collection is indexed and searchable. The collections above that say "browse images only" are not indexed, but are waypointed (e.g., alphabetically, by county, by town, etc.); for these, the user has to move image by image, or jump to an image number, in order to see the actual records.

FamilySearch is constantly updating the incomplete collections, so check back on occasion. also, new record collections are added each month so be sure to check the list of Illinois record collections every so often.

Monday, September 3, 2012

In My FTM 2012 File Synced with Ancestry - only needed more Patience (30 August 2012), I discussed some of the issues I had with using TreeSync in Family Tree Maker 2012 to a new Ancestry Member Tree.As I looked through the Ancestry Member Tree, I noticed several things that did notl ook right:* The most important thing was that the "double dates" (you know, the ones for January, February and March between 1582 and 1752) were screwy. One entry said 0001 - 20 March 1630 - it should have said 20 March 1630/1. There were hundreds of entries like this.* Long source citation details were truncated, as if there is a character limit. My guess is that one the programs has a 255 character limit for citation details.I set about to figure out why these happened, and where they occurred in my RootsMagic 5 > GEDCOM file > Legacy Family Tree 7.5 > GEDCOM File > Family Tree Maker 2012 > Ancestry Member Tree process. My findings:* The RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM file export has the double dates in correct format. The Legacy Family Tree 7.5 export to GEDCOM file did not. I think that there is a setting in LFT to enable double dates in Options > Customize > Dates that didn't get enabled. * The truncation of the long source citation details occurred when exporting the Legacy Family Tree 7.5 file to the GEDCOM file. The RootsMagic 5 export to GEDCOM shows them complete. They also show as truncated in Legacy Family Tree 7.5 source citations. I decided to delete my newly created Ancestry Member Tree, mainly because the double date problem is pandemic in my file.So what to do now to get my genealogy database without these problems into an Ancestry Member Tree? I decided to do three tasks:1) Create a new RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM file and upload it directly to Ancestry.com as a new Ancestry Member Tree. Will the double dates be correct, will the source citation details be complete, and what other problems will I find?2) Upload the new RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM 5 file into Family Tree Maker 2012 and see if the double date and source citation detail problems transmit to FTM 2012. Then use TreeSync to add the tree to a new Ancestry Member Tree (separate from the first one), and determine what problems exist.3) Upload the new RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM file to Legacy Family Tree 7.5, make sure to turn on the double date indicator, and see what problems, if any, exist in that file (especially checking for the source citation detail problem).
I will report on these three tasks in separate posts in the next few days.

As a baseline, here are snippets from the RootsMagic 5 GEDCOM file for the two problems mentioned above:

As you can see, in the 10th line, the BIRTh tag date is BEF 20 MAR 1630/1. In the 19th line, the CHRistening tag date is 20 MAR 1630/1.

* For the source citation detail problem, the GEDCOM file for the 1920 U.S. Census for Frank Walton Seaver is:

As you can see (probably with a magnifying glass!), the source citation detail PAGE (the GEDCOM tag for citation detail) item in the GEDCOM is complete, all the way to the end of the "...Roll 747." There are 290 characters in the source citation detail by my count.

As far as I can tell, the GEDCOM file created by RootsMagic 5 transmits the double date information correctly and the source citation detail completely.

What other problems have you found uploading a GEDCOM file to another program or to an Ancestry Member Tree? Tell me about them in Comments.

Genea-blogger John Newmark (who writes the excellent TransylvanianDutch blog) started a Monday blog theme many months ago called Amanuensis Monday. What does "amanuensis" mean? John offers this definition:

"A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another."

The document this week is the Final Account filed by the administrator of the estate of my great-grandmother, Hattie L. (Hildreth) Seaver (1857-1920), who died 29 November 1920 in Leominster, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Hattie's husband, Frank Walton Seaver, died after she did on 27 November 1922. However, Hattie's mother, Sophia (Newton) Hildreth, died after both of them on 29 August 1923. The estate of Sophia (Newton) Hildreth included the property in Leominster that she and Hattie inherited from Edward Hildreth (1831-1899), their husband and father, respectively.Here is the Final Account of the estate of Hattie L. Seaver, including the property schedules:

The transcription of this document is (handwritten portions in italics, blanks underlined):

As seen in earlier posts for this estate settlement, the administrator sold the house (after paying fees and repairs), paid off the funeral and cemetery charges, and the two heirs-at-law. Somehow, he got it to come out to $2,700 even for each heir. There is no fee listed for the administrator, other than what was retained by him for future charges of administration.

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About Me

I am a native San Diegan, a graduate of San Diego State University, a retired aerospace engineer, a genealogist and a family guy.
My wife (Angel Linda) and I have two lovely daughters, and five darling grandchildren. We love to visit them and have them visit us.
Angel Linda and I love to travel to visit friends and relatives, to sightsee, to cruise or to do genealogy. Our travels have taken us all over the USA, to England, Down Under and Scandinavia.
For earlier posts (not visible on the main post list), please see the Archives listed below by month.
If you like my blog, please put it in your Favorites or Bookmarks and visit regularly.
Contact me via email at randy.seaver@gmail.com